You should not work when you are sick

This really shouldn't be a controversial opinion, and yet for most of us especially in the service sector we are at risk of official consequences if we do call in, as well as unofficially getting a reputation as lazy or unmotivated. This is true even at something as low consequence as the pizza shop where I work.

That in mind, is there any wonder that Clinton tried to hide her illness? This was a poor decision from a personal health standpoint, pneumonia fucking wrecks you, and she is 68, basically right in the age group that is among the most vulnerable to the disease, yet she attempted to power through it because she knows that if she takes a week off she will be attacked as weak, selfish, and unfit to be president because she was attempting to not die.

Attempting to cover it up was probably her only option from an optics perspective, if she could maybe have managed a slow down in events and pursued an antibiotic course she could have perhaps managed to get through without anyone knowing, of course that didn't work out, because pneumonia fucking wrecks you. So here we are, apparently thinking worse of someone because they got sick, meanwhile Donald Trump is blatantly supported by literal white supremacists and no less than once a week gives an interview where he informs us of how awesome Vladimir Putin is, and he does this while lying about literally anything and everything any time he speaks in public, but no, catching a disease totally disqualifies Clinton.

The fucking stupid thing is, that this is the one critique of her that the rest of us can actually empathize with, like, I called in sick about a month or two ago for one day at my job, I return and find out that everyone had been talking about how I just wanted a three day weekend. I am not alone in this experience, happens whenever anyone calls in. It's some fucked up ingrained element of our culture to not want to appear weak in front of our peers, which is stupid because we have left the time when someone might steal our roots, or pile of meat and skins, from us if we show weakness long behind.

I don't give a crap if my president is half dead or permanently disabled, I give a crap if they are capable of doing the job, FDR seemed to do an okay job, and the right certainly had no problems with Reagan and his increasingly obvious Alzheimer's related dementia, but somehow a temporary illness that can quite literally kill you if not dealt with is an insurmountable obstacle for some, even some Democrats think that, which is dumb as hell.

What this should do is focus attention on how fucked up our labor culture is that we think this is okay for anyone to have to do to be considered for a job, and it should start a conversation about why being sick is a problem for the first serious woman candidate when it doesn't seem to have been a huge issue historically. In a sane world, working class Americans who experience the same thing on an almost daily basis would see what is happening with Clinton and empathize, while the campaign takes the time to work it into it's own message.

But it won't, the polls will tighten, the press will talk it to death and ignore the next stupid fucking thing Trump says in favor of it, and nothing will continue to matter.

I said the polls will tighten, not that Trump will take the lead though, this is just an excuse to add some drama and try to resurrect the horse-race narrative that the pundit class seems to think we all need to follow every damned election regardless of how evil or corrupt a candidate is.

Oh, and for those who think it is time for the DNC to pick a new candidate, it ain't fucking happening, fucking deal with it, she isn't dropping out and the DNC can't remove her if at this point without her consent, not without a massive change of their own rules that requires a delegate meeting that isn't going to happen. it's like two months until the election, your choices are Clinton or Trump, suck it the fuck up.

Hell if she does die, Kaine doesn't seem like a terrible dude, plus he plays a mean harmonica on the tour bus apparently.